Harae - The enthusiastic public support which Andrew Young, a former United
States ambassador to the United Nations and the first black mayor of Atlanta, is
giving to Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's controversial land grab may be
motivated by ambition to win a lucrative contract to lobby for Zimbabwe in the
US.
Young, who on Friday visited Mugabe for the second time in barely
two months, has publicly hailed Mugabe for handling the land question in
Zimbabwe better than the way the "British were handling the Northern Ireland
problem".
Young has called Mugabe a more legitimate head of state than
President George Bush, who won the US presidential election in controversial
circumstances.
Many analysts have dismissed Young's praise singing as
part of an effort to win over a lucrative contract to spruce up Zimbabwe's
battered image abroad.
By Basildon Peta
Harare - President Robert Mugabe is tightening his
grip on key state institutions ahead of presidential elections due in April next
year.
Mugabe has appointed officials of unquestioned loyalty in the
army, the police and the judiciary in the past few months and this week to the
state-run Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC), which still enjoys a monopoly
over broadcasting.
The monopoly of radio especially, which reaches the
widest audience in Zimbabwe, gives the ruling Zanu-PF party an enormous
head-start in elections.
By D'Arcy Doran
Lagos - President Olusegun Obasanjo said 150 Nigerian
children died recently off the coast of west Africa on their way to Gabon to
work as slaves, an official for the president's office reported on Thursday.
Obasanjo spoke of the deaths during a meeting with the Nigerian Council
of Women Societies (NCWS) on Wednesday before leaving for the G8 summit in
Genoa, said Attah Esa, a media affairs co-ordinator who attended the meeting.
"The president said 150 children died on their way to Gabon where they
were to be used to sell nylon and water," Attah said. "A statement will be
coming later today."